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NEWS: TIRANA UPDATE.

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Sokol Rama

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Sep 8, 1998, 3:00:00 AM9/8/98

! ! ! D E M O N S T R A T I O N ! ! !
KOSOVA Demonstration in Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 09, 1998
http://www.ece.stevens-tech.edu/~cana/kosova-demo-dc.html
____________________________________________________________________
Kosova Information Center http://www.kosova.com/
Kosova-Info-Line (German) http://www.kosova-info-line.de/
Koha Ditore (ARTA) http://www.kohaditore.com/ARTA/index.htm
____________________________________________________________________

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

Security experts reviewing US embassies-NY Times
REUTERS/09/08

Albania PM says ready to end political punishment
REUTERS/09/08

Commission winds up work on returning Nazi gold
(ALBANIA)
REUTERS/09/08

Security Experts Assessing U.S. Embassies
The New York Times/09/08

_____________

Security experts reviewing US embassies-NY Times

07:47 a.m. Sep 08, 1998 Eastern

NEW YORK, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The Clinton administration, convinced that
there may be new attacks against U.S. embassies, has dispatched
counter-terrorism experts to diplomatic missions around the world to assess
their vulnerability and determine if any should be closed immediately, the
New York Times reported

on Tuesday.

The Times said administration officials believe that terrorists associated
with Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire the United States has
accused of masterminding the two embassy bombings in East Africa last
month, are planning a new round of attacks. The report cited unnamed
administration sources.

The sources told the paper that Bin Laden-affiliated terrorists were
prepared last month to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania. The
embassy was hastily closed on Aug. 14 as a result of intelligence reports
warning of an attack, which was then foiled with assistance from Albanian
security forces, the Times said.

Last week, the embassy in Kuwait warned that terrorists may be planning
attacks there, and U.S. embassies in Ghana and Togo were closed temporarily
in response to perceived terrorist threats, the paper reported.

The White House is expected this week to ask Congress for between $1
billion and $3 billion to build new embassies to replace those destroyed in
the Aug. 7 attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, the Times said. The request also
covers emergency security improvements at other embassies around the world.

_____________

Albania PM says ready to end political punishment

12:43 p.m. Sep 08, 1998 Eastern

TIRANA, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano said on
Tuesday he was poised to back moves that would end punishment for political
crimes committed under Albania's former regime and foster political
reconciliation.

Nano, who has been accused by former President Sali Berisha for ordering
the arrest of six officials of Berisha's government, said the international
community would help Albania apply ``reconciliation'' mechanisms.

Some of the officials arrested last month have been accused of planning to
use a type of poisonous gas against protestors in the southern city of
Vlore in February last year.

``I am ready to back initiatives which, without paralysing and demotivating
justice, bring to a formal end punishment of a political nature and aspire
towards real and indispensable national reconciliation,'' Nano said,
according to the text of a speech faxed to Reuters.

Berisha, whose Democrats have taken to the streets in protest at the
arrests, has also accused Nano of tearing up a pact aimed at avoiding civil
war by ordering the arrests.

He has vowed the demonstrations will continue until Nano is toppled.

Nano says prosecutors acted independently in ordering the arrests.

``This reconcialition is the basis of the future that is being built
today,'' Nano said in the speech delivered to his ruling Socialist members
of parliament.

The six officials are accused of crimes against humanity over their role in
last year's unrest, which was sparked by the collapse of pyramid investment
schemes. About 2,000 people were killed.

_____________

Commission winds up work on returning Nazi gold

11:29 a.m. Sep 08, 1998 Eastern

By Tom Heneghan

PARIS, Sept 8 (Reuters) - The Tripartite Gold Commission, set up after
World War Two to return gold plundered by the Nazis, will wind up over five
decades of work on Wednesday with some controversial questions still
begging for an answer.

The panel run by the United States, Britain and France has finished
dividing up the 336.5 tonnes of gold recovered after the war among the 11
countries whose national banks were emptied when German troops marched in.

But the commission has not been able to determine how much of that gold was
actually stolen from private individuals, especially from Jewish victims of
the Holocaust, diplomats said.

How much gold Soviet troops spirited off to Moscow after they conquered
Berlin also remains a mystery, they said. Countries occupied by the Germans
told the commission that a total of 514 tonnes of gold had been looted by
the Nazis during the war.

``We cannot be sure that those 336.5 tonnes were all monetary gold,'' said
one diplomat, using the term for gold originally belonging to the monetary
reserves of the occupied countries.

``But the commission has now finished its work.''

Eighty percent of the stolen gold found in 1945 near Kassel in Germany or
recovered from safe-keeping in neutral countries such as Switzerland and
Sweden was returned to central banks in the late 1940s. Smaller
disbursements followed.

By last December's London conference on Nazi gold, the commission had only
5.5 tonnes of undisbursed bullion, which has mostly been returned to the
plundered central banks according to a formula worked out for the earlier
distributions.

In the meantime, however, the World Jewish Congress (WJC) said declassified
U.S. documents proved the Commission pooled 50 to 60 tonnes of gold
plundered from private individuals along with the bullion stolen from
central banks.

Compensating only the central banks was unfair, the WJC argued, but Jewish
groups could not finalise compensation claims until they knew exactly how
much non-monetary gold was involved.

British officials disputed the WJC claim at the London conference, saying
the amount of private gold was much smaller.

The diplomats could not say how much private gold had been recovered but
said they knew some of it was quickly disbursed in the late 1940s as
humanitarian aid for war refugees. One estimate put this at $26 million in
1945 prices.

``You have to remember there was an urgent humanitarian need, this was a
time before we knew there would be a Marshall Plan,'' one diplomat said.

The commission will turn its archives over for storage to the French
Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, after which they will be open for
researchers to consult.

The WJC has been pressing the commission to open its archives, saying these
documents might shed light on how much the panel knew about the private
gold and how it was used.

Since the commission rules prevented the last 5.5 tonnes being used to
compensate individuals for their losses, the London conference set up an
international fund to help needy victims and urged countries with
outstanding claims to contribute to it.

The countries with outstanding claims for stolen gold were Albania,
Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg,
Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia and ex-Yugoslavia.

The remaining 5.5 tonnes have been disbursed among all of them except
ex-Yugoslavia, where the successor states to the former Balkan federation
have still not agreed how to divide up the two or three bars of gold due to
them, the diplomats said.

British officials said last month the victims' compensation fund had raised
almost $57 million so far -- more than the $55 million the final 5.5 tonnes
of gold was worth, and more money could still flow in.

____________

September 8, 1998

Security Experts Assessing U.S. Embassies

The New York Times

By PHILIP SHENON

<Picture: W>ASHINGTON -- Alarmed by evidence that terrorists are planning
new attacks on U.S. embassies, the administration has dispatched
counterterrorism experts to diplomatic missions around the world to
determine if any are so vulnerable that they should be shuttered
immediately, administration officials say.

The officials add that terrorists believed to be associated with Osama bin
Laden, the exiled Saudi accused of orchestrating the bombing of two U.S.
embassies in East Africa last month, are surveying other embassies in
preparation for a new round of attacks.

The officials are convinced that terrorists allied with bin Laden were
prepared last month to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, Albania. The
embassy was hastily closed on Aug. 14 as a result of intelligence reports
showing that it had been selected by Muslim fundamentalists for attack. The
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the attack was foiled
with the help of Albanian security forces.

Last week the embassy in Kuwait warned Americans that terrorists may be
planning attacks there similar to the bombings on Aug. 7 in Nairobi, Kenya,
and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. U.S. embassies in Ghana and Togo were also
temporarily closed last week in response to perceived terrorist threats.

Government officials have said that the White House and the State
Department are expected to submit a formal request to Congress this week
for between $1 billion and $3 billion to build new embassies to replace
those in Kenya and Tanzania, and to pay for emergency security improvements
at embassies around the world.

Senior U.S. officials have publicly predicted that bin Laden will try to
retaliate for the U.S. air strike on what the administration has described
as his terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. That attack and another in
the Sudan were ordered by President Clinton in response to the bombings in
Kenya and Tanzania, which he blamed on bin Laden and his followers.

"I think we can predict, with some certainty, that we will see a reaction
by bin Laden and his organization," FBI Director Louis Freeh said last
week. He termed the threat of attacks on Americans by bin Laden's followers
"about as serious and imminent a threat as I can imagine."

On Friday the State Department issued a "worldwide caution" to U.S.
travelers that "terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, continue their
threats against the United States and have not distinguished between
military and civilian targets."

Shortly after the East Africa bombings, the administration sent
counterterrorism specialists and other investigators from the State
Department, the Pentagon and the CIA to inspect embassies and consulates
around the world to determine which were most vulnerable.

Administration officials said the specialists are expected to report back
to Washington shortly with suggestions on how to tighten security -- in
some cases by abandoning embassy buildings that are considered especially
dangerous and relocating employees.

If an embassy is closed and no other suitable space is available, they
said, U.S. diplomats may be asked to work in mobile metal-framed structures
that can transported from the United States aboard military cargo planes.

"We don't want to repeat Nairobi," said a State Department official.

The embassy in Kenya was built in 1981 on a central thoroughfare in the
heart of the capital. Ambassador Prudence Bushnell had considered the
location so vulnerable that she had cabled the State Department twice in
the months before the bombing to request that the embassy be relocated. The
request was denied for budgetary reasons.

The embassy in Tanzania had been considered less vulnerable, both because
it is situated outside the center city and because of better design.
Neither embassy, however, met current security standards.

State Department officials said the specialists sent abroad last month
would probably recommend that at least a handful of embassies and
consulates be relocated immediately.

Such recommendations, they said, reflect a change in the thinking of
security experts within the government.

"Once upon a time, you wouldn't worry so much about embassy security in a
nation like Kenya, which has no history of terrorism," an official said.
"You worried about places like Beirut and Cairo. The bombings last month
proved that we now have to worry about security everywhere. And we do have
some embassies that are very exposed."

Administration officials would not identify which embassies or consulates
might be shuttered, although several large embassies around the world are
well known among U.S. diplomats as especially vulnerable because they are
located close to the street, making them easy targets for a car bomb.

Other embassies are known to be at special risk because of their proximity
to power plants or gasoline stations.

The embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for example, which was shut down for
routine operations last month because of a terrorist threat, is next to a
gasoline station. After the East Africa bombings, the embassy paid the
owner of the station to shut it down. Malaysian newspapers reported that
the gasoline and diesel fuel stored in the station's underground tanks was
drained out.

Officials said that the State Department had not settled on a final figure
in the request to Congress for new construction and security improvements,
but that the total would come to between $1 billion and $3 billion. The
money should allow security at some embassies to be raised to the standards
set by the State Department in the 1980s.

Over the years, the department was given less than one-third of the money
needed to modify or build embassies meeting those standards, which were
recommended in 1985 by a panel led by Bobby Inman, a retired admiral and
the former deputy director of Central Intelligence.

The panel was formed in response to the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in
Beirut in 1984 and the bombing the year before of the U.S. Marine barracks
in Beirut; the two attacks killed more than 250 people.

____________________________________________________________________
ALBANEWS Site of the Day: "Albania - Land of the Eagles"
http://www.albania.co.uk/
____________________________________________________________________
ALBANEWS is not affiliated with the Albanian Government, the Kosova
Government, any association or organization, nor any information or
news agency. Reports, articles and news items from various sources
are distributed via ALBANEWS for INFORMATIVE purposes only.
Opinions expressed/published on ALBANEWS do NOT necessarily reflect
the views of the owner and the co-owners and/or moderators, nor any
of their host institutions. ALBANEWS does NOT guarantee the accuracy
of the reports, articles and news items distributed via the list.
____________________________________________________________________
ALBANEWS listowner, co-owners and/or moderators can be contacted at:
ALBANEWS...@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu

Sokol Rama

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Sep 9, 1998, 3:00:00 AM9/9/98

Kosova Information Center http://www.kosova.com/
Kosova-Info-Line (German) http://www.kosova-info-line.de/
Koha Ditore (ARTA) http://www.kohaditore.com/ARTA/index.htm
____________________________________________________________________

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

FOCUS-Albania finance minister threatens to resign
REUTERS 09/09

Albania budget deficit 19.8 bln lek in July -c.bank
REUTERS 09/09

Albania lek helped by illegal trade, season effects
REUTERS 09/09

Albanian reporter close to opposition said beaten
REUTERS 09/09

.... On Nazi gold
REUTERS 09/09

_________________________

FOCUS-Albania finance minister threatens to resign

08:43 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

By Llazar Semini

TIRANA, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Albanian Finance Minister Arben Malaj on
Wednesday threatened to resign if Prime Minister Fatos Nano did not confirm
his support for him after a disagreement over personnel changes at the
finance ministry.

``I have not offered my resignation, but I have asked for political support
for Albanian finance ministry projects. If there is no support then I will
be obliged to resign,'' Malaj was quoted as saying by Albania's ATA news
agency.

Deputy Finance Minister Adriana Berberi said Malaj had sought on Tuesday
the endorsement of Nano and the parliamentary Socialist Party for the
finance ministry's work and said he would have to resign if support was not
forthcoming.

``At these meetings he offered an alternative: 'either strong support for
the finance structures or I will leave.'''

Berberi said Malaj had not sent Nano an official resignation letter,
adding: ``the minister is continuing to work for now.''

Malaj clashed with Nano after the prime minister decided the heads of the
tax and customs departments at the finance ministry had failed to collect
targetted budget revenues and failed to clamp down on fiscal evasion.

``The Albanian government considers necessary ... changes to the leadership
of the department of customs and the department of taxation,'' the
government said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

The Gazeta Shqiptare daily said Nano and President Rexhep Meidani had
planned a government reshuffle to move the finance and agriculture
ministers and one of the deputy prime ministers.

There was no comment available from the finance ministry. Nano left Albania
on Wednesday to attend a trade fair in Portugal and there was no comment
available from his office either.

Malaj was quoted by ATA as saying the heads of the customs and taxation
departments had not yet been sacked and that he would continue to support
them as they were working effectively.

Berberi said she and Malaj would rather be sacked themselves before the two
senior civil servants were ousted.

After Tuesday's government meeting, Nano said economic and financial
reforms were not being implemented fast enough to meet the demands of the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The government, which was elected in the aftermath of widespread civil
unrest last year, has sought to improve public finances but has been dogged
by increased expenditure associated with a flood of refugees from
neighbouring Kosovo.

_________________________

Albania budget deficit 19.8 bln lek in July -c.bank

11:39 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

TIRANA, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The Albanian government's budget deficit grew to
19.8 billion leks ($137 million) at the end of July, the central bank said
in a report on Wednesday.

In July alone the budget deficit grew by 4.4 billion leks.

``This came as a result of an increase in expenditure, which stood at 15
billion leks, compared to the increase of revenue which was 10 billion
leks,'' the central bank said in its July report. The bank gave rounded
expenditure and revenue figures.

The deficit was financed by domestic sources, especially treasury bills
which accounted for 64 percent of the financing.

The rest was covered by foreign sources, the report added.

The Bank of Albania said its credit to the government remained zero.

ALBANIAN FISCAL BALANCE July 1998 June 1998
Total revenues (mln leks) 45,077 34,522
Percent of annual GDP (pct) 10 7.7
Total expenditure (mln leks) 64,880 49,990
Percent of annual GDP (pct) 14.4 11.1
Fiscal balance (mln leks) -19,803 -15,468
Percent of annual GDP (pct) -4.4 -3.4
Deficit without grants (mln leks) -19,887 -15,552
Percent of annual GDP (pct) -4.4 -3.5
Total budget financing (mln leks) 19,803 15,468
Domestic financing (mln leks) 11,746 8,852
Credit from Bank of Albania 0,0 0,0
Treasury bills 14.524 11,037
Government deposits 2,778 2,085
Foreign financing 8,057 6,516
(U.S. dollar-144 leks)

________________________

Albania lek helped by illegal trade, season effects

12:05 p.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

TIRANA, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Albania's central bank said on Wednesday the
high level of sight deposits, seasonal factors and a large amount of
illegal trade were behind a recent strengthening in the value of the lek.

The Albanian currency has rallied steadily over the past five months,
climbing from a low of 159.38 to the dollar in March to 149.33 on Tuesday.

The Bank of Albania did not provide details of the illegal trade but
Albanian newspapers have been reporting an upsurge in smuggling which has
reduced the demand for foreign currency.

In its report the bank also identified the return to a more stable
political situation after months of civil unrest last year as a factor
behind the currency's strength.

In addition to gaining against the dollar, the lek was also stronger on the
Albanian market against other currencies including the German mark, Swiss
franc, Greek drachma and Italian lira.

________________________

Albanian reporter close to opposition said beaten

09:02 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

TIRANA, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Albania's opposition Democratic Party said on
Wednesday that a radio journalist who used to be the party's spokesman had
been severely beaten up.

Agron Bala had finished his afternoon phone-in programme on Tuesday when he
was attacked by unidentified assailants. He was hit in the face and around
the body.

``His right eye is in pretty bad shape, otherwise his condition is
stable,'' Democratic Party spokeswoman Arta Sakja told Reuters.

Newspapers printed a picture of Bala with a bandage around his head and
right eye.

Bala, who directs phone-in programmes for Radio Kontakt, which is seen as a
mouthpiece of the Democrats and which he co-owns, had received threats
during his earlier programmes, Sakja said.

The Democratic Party condemned Bala's beating and accused Socialist Prime
Minister Fatos Nano of inciting violence against journalists.

_________________________

On Nazi gold

10:43 a.m. Sep 09, 1998 Eastern

By Tom Heneghan

excerpt

``Recent historical research has now established beyond doubt that the
monetary gold plundered from countries which were themselves victims of
Nazi aggression became intermingled with personal gold from individual
victims across the continent and in the death camps, as the Nazis smelted
monetary gold and victim gold together into disguised gold bars,''
Eizenstat said.

But the TGC could not say how much ``victim gold'' had been melted down
into new bars and added to the stock of monetary gold it returned to the
plundered central banks.

Last December's London conference on Nazi gold set up a fund to help
Holocaust victims and urged all countries that still had outstanding claims
for looted gold to contribute it to the fund.

The World Jewish Congress told the meeting that declassified U.S. documents
showed that 50 to 60 tonnes of the TGC's bullion pool were actually private
``victim gold'' that should be used to compensate Holocaust victims.
Delegates disputed this amount.

Most countries with claims on the last 5.5 tonnes of gold the TGC disbursed
earlier this year have pledged the money to the fund. The $57 million
raised so far exceed the $55 million the gold was worth and more pledges
were expected to be made.

The TGC handed over its 110 boxes of archives to the French Foreign
Ministry and they will now be open to the public.

Officials showed journalists some of the records, including the
commission's old-fashioned ledger showing the history of its gold movements
including the last disbursement of four bars of gold to Albania on July 13,
1998.

The Bank of England is still holding three bars of TGC gold, the part due
to ex-Yugoslavia when the six successor states to the former Balkan
confederation can decide how to divide it up.

____________________________________________________________________
ALBANEWS Site of the Day: "Albanian Home Page"
http://www.albanian.com/main

Sokol Rama

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Sep 12, 1998, 3:00:00 AM9/12/98

____________ALBANEWS: Albanian News and Information Network_________
Archives: http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/albanews.html
____________________________________________________________________
Kosova Information Center http://www.kosova.com/
Kosova-Info-Line (German) http://www.kosova-info-line.de/
Koha Ditore (ARTA) http://www.kohaditore.com/ARTA/index.htm
____________________________________________________________________

Taken without permission, for fair use only.

UK aid worker Becker attacked in Albania
REUTERS 09/12

___________________________________

UK aid worker Becker attacked in Albania

09:29 a.m. Sep 12, 1998 Eastern

LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Armed bandits in northern Albania attacked
British aid worker Sally Becker, hitting her on the head with an assault
rifle during a mission to deliver aid to Kosovan refugees, her spokesman
said on Saturday.

It was the second time in two months that Becker, a freelancer who became a
household name during the war in Bosnia, had run into trouble in her
efforts to help the victims of the conflict over Kosovo.

Becker, 37, reported being struck with a Kalashnikov on Friday evening
after her vehicle was stopped and stolen by bandits near Bajarmcurri in
northern Albania.

She received medical treatment locally and continued with her mission. The
Foreign Office said Becker had reported the incident to its mission in
Tirana but had not requested assistance.

In July, Becker was arrested and imprisoned by Yugoslav authorities after
being caught without a visa trying to smuggle Albanian refugees out of
Kosovo and across the border. She was released after a week-long hunger
strike and barred from returning to Kosovo for three years.

``Nothing will stop me and my work. While there are people in need I shall
try to help. The only thing that will stop me will be a bullet,'' Becker
said on Saturday in a statement released in Britain.

She said her ``Operation Angel'' convoy of 17 volunteers arrived at their
destination on Saturday morning to distribute food and medical aid to
refugees fleeing the fighting between ehtnic Albanina separatists and
Serbian and Yugoslav security forces.

____________________________________________________________________
ALBANEWS Site of the Day: "University of Calabria, Faculty of Albanology"
http://www.arber.unical.it/

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